T-Shirt Vendors

[NC Hokie]

My squadron is planning to order some squadron t-shirts in the next month or two.  Are there any vendors that offer a "Desert Tan" shirt as called for by the ABU wear instruction letter?  If so, who are they?

[THRAWN]

Always had good luck with Custom Ink in the past...

My squadron is planning to order some squadron t-shirts in the next month or two.  Are there any vendors that offer a "Desert Tan" shirt as called for by the ABU wear instruction letter?  If so, who are they?

[Gunsotsu]

Custom Ink's tan isn't "Desert Tan." Sand is close.

I recommend against getting squadron shirts in tan, but rather in black. While the ICL authorizes wear of a squadron t-shirt with ABUs, it of course has to be tan. And that precluded those members that wear the BBDU, etc. Were you to order black rather than tan, then that covers your BBDU wearing members and cadet as the PT uniform.

Unless you're that flush with cash that you can order both.

[majdomke]

Always had good luck with Custom Ink in the past...

My squadron is planning to order some squadron t-shirts in the next month or two.  Are there any vendors that offer a "Desert Tan" shirt as called for by the ABU wear instruction letter?  If so, who are they?

Ditto. Many squadrons in our wing going the custom ink route

[Kayll'b]

Custom Ink's tan isn't "Desert Tan." Sand is close.

I recommend against getting squadron shirts in tan, but rather in black. While the ICL authorizes wear of a squadron t-shirt with ABUs, it of course has to be tan. And that precluded those members that wear the BBDU, etc. Were you to order black rather than tan, then that covers your BBDU wearing members and cadet as the PT uniform.

Unless you're that flush with cash that you can order both.

If you're my squadron almost all of the cadets are still in ABUs anyway.

[majdomke]

Even when we were we wearing BDUs we used Custom Ink for our black t-shirts.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[TheSkyHornet]

Custom Ink's tan isn't "Desert Tan." Sand is close.

I recommend against getting squadron shirts in tan, but rather in black. While the ICL authorizes wear of a squadron t-shirt with ABUs, it of course has to be tan. And that precluded those members that wear the BBDU, etc. Were you to order black rather than tan, then that covers your BBDU wearing members and cadet as the PT uniform.

Unless you're that flush with cash that you can order both.

If you're my squadron almost all of the cadets are still in ABUs anyway.

Same. We have one cadet who still wears BDUs.

Who says the "PT uniform" (which doesn't exist) has to be black?

[jhighman]

I'd like to put in a plug for the neighborhood independent shops in your area that might offer the same kinds of services. They'd very likely love to support you in return. I found a shop that just happened to be on the other side of our airport. They waived the art charge (I supplied the vector graphics so there wasn't anything for them to do!), they only charged half the set up cost ($25 for an order of 76 shirts) and waived the sales tax because of our 501c3 status. They also extended our payment terms because I explained how our finance committee worked and how the balance exceeded our ability to simply write a check.

Anyway, the point is that custom ink is putting the squeeze on the independent vendors in your community so perhaps consider sending some love their way. I'm sure they have Sand and Black options!

[Eclipse]

What kind of costs are we talking from Custom Ink per shirt?

In regards to supporting local vendors, I agree at the high level, but it's not CAP's responsibility to
hold up failed business models on the backs of volunteers' money.

It's kind of a toss-up. Online services will have the best prices, but probably not the best flexibility,
we need to order ad-hoc for encampment by size, which local vendors can generally do more easily.

We also need them pretty short-run.  We don't know who is coming until 30 days out, so we need a
1-2 week turn around on 300 some shirts.  A fairly tall order.

There's also the non-trivial issue of shipping large orders, which can add a big chunk to the price
vs. a local vendor who is hopefully in proximity to a member somewhere.

[baronet68]

Who says the "PT uniform" (which doesn't exist) has to be black?

My wing has a 39-1 supplement defining the PT uniform as a black plain or unit t-shirt with navy blue shorts.  Looking at maybe changing the shirt color.

What kind of costs are we talking from Custom Ink per shirt?

My recent orders with Custom Ink:
- Single-color printing (front only) were about $10 each for 25 shirts.
- Four-color printing (front only) were about $12 each for 50 shirts.
- Single-color printing (front and back) were about $16 each for 15 shirts.

[Eclipse]

Does that include shipping?

That's a little pricey, not outrageous, but more then we've paid recently for local people.

[baronet68]

Does that include shipping?

That's a little pricey, not outrageous, but more then we've paid recently for local people.

Shipping was free on all of my orders. 

[Eclipse]

That helps, though no shipping on local.

We looked at Cafepress as well, but didn't like their product.

[chacharoo]

I recommend 4imprint, many options to choose from. Custom ink's quality doesn't seem like the best to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PHall]

If you're looking for a place for lets say a squadron t-shirt that you're going to reorder a number of times then find a place that does silkscreen locally.
They're all over the place and being able to deal with them face to face usually helps with quality control.

If it's for a small quantity, one time deal like an activity shirt, then Custom Ink has worked for me. YMMV.

[Toad1168]

My vote is go with the local shop.  In my experience, quality is better and the price is comparative to what was stated above.  Plus, you can't beat the service.  Case in point.  Encampment starts this Saturday.  We just got the shirts from our local vendor and we discovered they are all wrong. (they put CADRE on the back of all the student shirts.  About 120).  They didn't even blink when we told them about the error and committed to us having them Friday morning.  :clap:

Remember, you get what you pay for.  My predecessor used an online company where he got shirts for about $3 a piece.  And guess what, they were junk.  But he kept ordering them because of the price. 

Get the good shirt.  Most people don't have a problem paying a little extra if they are getting a good product.

[Eclipse]

My vote is go with the local shop.  In my experience, quality is better and the price is comparative to what was stated above.  Plus, you can't beat the service.  Case in point.  Encampment starts this Saturday.  We just got the shirts from our local vendor and we discovered they are all wrong. (they put CADRE on the back of all the student shirts.  About 120).  They didn't even blink when we told them about the error and committed to us having them Friday morning.

Ugh - similar problem this year for us. 

We send art that is exactly the correct dimensions with detailed instructions.   Their "art" department blew up
the front chest logo  to the full back of the shirt, then called one of my staff and said "the logo is all jaggey".

Once that was worked out, they did the same thing with the cadre shirts, "cadre" on the front, chest logo on the back.

We worked that out, and when we got the final run, they had made the chest log too small by ~25%.

Not Great, not terrible, but too late too fix.